Halkeginia Adventures
by Kuromoki
Summary: Complete AU setting, Follows the adventures of Saito who explores the vast land of Halkeginia. 4 countries are much larger then in anime, how large still deciding. Inspired by GatsuBerk's "Discarded" and ralf07's "Tsukaima No Saito". Discontinued.
1. Chapter 1

Saito Hiraga was bored. Ever since he graduated from the magical institution of Japan, he found himself utterly bored with the life he leads. In the current times, Magic was considered a common gift where nearly everyone could utilize it in some form and to Saito who was considered a prodigy by his peer in terms of magical ability, he found magic to be pointless to learn. In a world of stability and peace, Saito found learning magic pointless since the only things one could do with it were to keep refining it in new ways to help the people, or to use it to teach future generations. To Saito's adventurous mindset, learning magic would take the fun out of life, but he still learned it to appease his peers that kept nagging him about it when he nearly made the decision to not learn it.

Graduating from the institution in one year instead of the normal four, many of his peers expected him to do great things in the future but they were shocked when they asked what he planned to do and he replied with "nothing, I learned magic just so you people would shut up about it". Now half a year later, at age 16 he was utterly bored with the life he was leading.

Sitting on his windowsill and staring out of his apartment Saito sighed. Ever since he had graduated he had been sighing a lot. He found the current world he lived in to be boring, ever since he was a kid, he dreamed of going on adventures, finding treasures, etc but was restricted by the fact that the world he lived in was so.._dull.._. would be the word.

Staring out of his window, looking at all the skyscrapers and people flying by with their magic looking all happy left him feeling disgusted. How could people be satisfied with just flying about with magic? Where was their sense of adventure? Tearing his eye's from his window, he stared back into his apartment and looked at the project he was working on. He had been intrigued when his magical instructors talking about parallel worlds and how the people of different worlds led completely different lives from theirs and that was what he was currently working on. A method that would allow him to traverse to different worlds and he was almost done. All that was needed was a lot of energy, which Saito was thankful for since he had more then enough, and certain runes that were imbued with the energy. From there quantum physics would take care of the rest and lead him to a new world.

However, he first had to make sure he took care of some loose ends. Such as making sure that when he left, there would be no evidence of his project and to make it seem as though he had an accident while working on something entirely different. While he was sure people would miss him, he wouldn't miss them since his parents were deceased and he lived alone and the only person that he could call a friend was happily engaged and pending marriage.

For now, he had to prepare the items he would be bringing with him to this new world. He knew for a fact that he would be bringing a lot of clothes since he wanted to at least blend in and non-perishable foods just in case. He debated with himself on whether or not he would bring books just in case he needed to go over basics or needed new ideas. In the end that also went onto his need-to-bring list. Luckily for him with the existence of magic, carrying such a large amount of stuff was easily feasible. However he first had to make his own storage unit since he didn't trust others. By crystallizing one's own magic and inserting it into a prepared box, it would warp the box so that only the person's magic could open the box and the thing about the box was that it had near limitless space inside so long as you had the magical energy to supply it with. The best part? They could be made so easily that everyone in the world had one by the time they were 7.

...

It was a month later that Saito finally finished charging up the runes needed to initiate his dimensional hopping device. It was originally the size of a bed, but through a spark of ingenuity, Saito created a box that could store it and use it at the same time. First by storing the contraption in the box and then locking the box through a rune that rerouted the dimensional process to a ring on his finger inscribed with more runes. From their Saito would charge the ring with his magical energy whenever he wanted and do a dimensional hop whenever it finished. Portability and functionality, best friends for a soon to be dimensional hopper.

Now Saito was in the midst of tying up his last loose end. He had rigged his apartment so that it would blow up 2 days after he had left. It would most likely be sorted as a magical experiment gone wrong and he would either be declared as M.I.A or K.I.A since magical experiments gone wrong tend to leave nothing behind, which was perfect for him since he didn't plan on returning anytime to this world at all. It lacked the adventures he craved.

Looking around one more time, Saito nodded when he knew he had everything and was ready to go. Strapping on a a modified utility belt that had all his boxes lined up, he started channeling his magical energy into the ring on his left hand. Feeling the ring react to his energy , Saito smirked and said " Bye bye old world, hello new world" before disappearing in a blue flash.

...

Tabitha was a quiet person by nature, to the point that everyone around her tended to generate an awkward silence with her nearby. No matter how much people tried to get her to talk, she would always just stay quiet and only talk when it as necessary as evidenced by the fact that she was giving one word commands to her teammates as they fought off the group of orcs they had accidently stumbled on.

"..dodge.." a man jumped out of the way of a club being swung by one of the orcs

"..duck.." another ducked the barrage of icy projectiles that flew right past where his head used to be

"..attack.." 4 others starting barraging the group of orcs with a myriad of spells pushing them back a little

Tabitha paused for a second before giving the final command. "..retreat.." everyone ran the hell back as the final mage who had been charging up for an area of effect spell unleashed his attack on the group of dumb orcs.

"_Boule De Feu Grand!(Great Fireball!)_" the mage shouted as the massive fireball exploded once it made contact with the group of orcs.

The smell of burned flesh permeated the area where the fireball had impacted and the 7 mages were celebrating while Tabitha headed back towards the caravan they were escorting to the Tristania border. Emerging from the forest where they had herded the group of orcs into, she gave a nod to the leader of the caravan who had looked nervous when the group of orcs jumped out at them. Seeing the nod, the merchant relaxed knowing that the crisis has passed and went to reassure the others.

Tabitha continued towards the horse that she had been using before the orcs showed up. Seeing it still where she left it along with the 7 others horses, she climbed back on it and waited for her fellow mages to return from the forest. While she understood the concept of celebrating after a fight, she saw no reason why they couldn't save it until after their mission was complete.

After her fellow mages returned, their caravan continued on their path towards the Tristania border. They traveled quite loudly with her fellow mages all celebrating the fact that they took down a group of 10 orcs with only 8 people so soon after receiving this mission. Tabitha herself just stayed quiet and continued riding in silence while ignoring her fellow mages. To her, they were her fellow partners that she was assigned to for this mission by the Academy and the moment they returned to the Academy after this mission, they would forget about her and she would them, so she saw no point in interacting with them.

However as they continued traveling, they came upon an odd sight in front of them. A lone teenage boy walking towards the Tristania border. While such a sight wasn't uncommon, the clothes the boy wore were very different from anything they had seen. Wearing a blue shirt that had a hood attached to the back with dark blue pants that looked rugged and a belt that had small boxes circling around it to complete the look. The boy as if he finally heard the noise being generated behind him, turned around and his eyes widened in shock as he saw the sight behind him.

...

Saito was lost when he showed up in this new world. The moment he finished transitioning into this world, he found himself stuck in mid-air for a second before falling towards the ground. He freaked out for about 5 seconds before he remembered he could use magic but hesitated when he thought of whether or not magic still worked in this world, by the time he jerked back to reality the ground was much closer and he just went with instinct and hoped magic still worked, or else he would be ending his so-called great adventure 30 seconds in. Luckily for him it seemed that magic still existed in this world and he was able to slow down his descent by creating a cushion of air in front of him, but it was not enough to stop him from face-planting the ground.

After about a minute he finally got up and looked around. Surrounding him was a lush forest with trees that towered above him. Looking up he saw that the trees were about the size of an 5-floor apartment complex back in his old world. Looking around once more he noticed that their seemed to be animals and bugs that looked completely different from anything he had seen. A bird that looked half as tall as himself was nesting in a tree to his right and a snake that was at least 20 feet long slithered past in front of him.

Barely containing his excitement from bursting out, he quickly started moving ahead hoping that he ended up close to a town so that he could gather information about this world that tingled his senses. It took about 15 minutes before he noticed that he was moving a lot more slower then he had expected and that was when he finally noticed that he was stepping on mud and slowing him down. Grimacing in distaste he pulled himself free and moved to get out of the wetlands. Once he was out of it he stopped by a stream that was close by to wash his shoes and feet. After all it was disgusting to walk with a squish in your step. As he was washing them he finally remembered to check if all his boxes still functioned correctly. Quickly drying off his feet, he took out a ring that had a lotus motif on it. Pushing his magic into the ring, he was satisfied to see the light blue flame that lit up. Pushing it into an indent on one of his boxes, he was further pleased when all of its content came out. Looking around, he found the boots that he had packed into the box and quickly put them on just in case he ended up stepping on mud again. Grabbing the box off the clip that held it to the belt, he channeled his magical energy into the box and watched as the retrieval mechanism was activated and all his items were resealed. Placing the box back onto his belt, he continued looking for a town and something that would lead him to one.

...

It wasn't until half an hour later that Saito finally got out of the forest and onto a path that went two ways. Choosing a path, he hoped that he would reach a town soon. As he walked, he started to make a cover story for himself so that people wouldn't make a fuss about him asking about stuff that should be common knowledge. He had still yet to meet anyone so he didn't know if the clothes he wore would stand out or not, so he could only hope for the best. Though he wondered what kind of people did this world have to offer. Was magic as common as back in his own world, or was it considered a rare gift? For now he would lay low and hide his ability to use magic until he had confirmed information about this world.

He walked for about 30 minutes before he heard a noise behind him. Turning around his eyes widened in shock when he saw what looked like a procession heading towards him. Turning around once more, he resumed his walk following the path but he moved quicker and to the side so as to not get in the way of the procession behind him.

As the procession approached him from behind, he thought he heard traces of french being spoken. Quietly using a universal translation spell he heard traces of what was being said.

"...what...wearing?..."

"..such a..rd look..."

"...a foreigner?.."

"..strange clothes.."

Quickening his pace even more, he hoped that the procession wouldn't bother him, it seemed like the clothes he was currently wearing made him stand out. Luckily for him he had a traveling cloak in one of his boxes, so all he had to do was get out of sight, take out his cloak and he would probably blend in with the natives until he had more time to observe what was the normal dress code in this world.

...

Tabitha silently observed the person in front of her. He seemed to be scared of them and was slowly increasing his pace as if to get away from them. She was confused as to why since they wouldn't do anything to him. Then she remembered that they were in a group and he was alone, if they ended up fighting he would definitely end up losing, so he wanted to get away from them just in case. Watching him quicken his pace again, she saw him glance at them one more time before turning around.

Returning her focus to the people around her, she heard traces of conversation about the strange boy in front of them. Most of the conversations were about how strange the persons clothes were while some of them thought of asking where they could get something similar since they never saw such clothes while the merchants had a glint in their eyes. No doubt they were thinking of whether or not the clothes would sell in the market. Internally shaking her head she looked ahead again to be internally surprised by how far ahead the stranger was. Before he was at least 30 Mel ahead, now he was at least 100. Just how fast was he traveling she wondered.

...

Saito was moving quick, he was using wind magic to boost the speed of his movement and he was at least 100 meters ahead of them now. Even though he had only walked for 3 minutes using the magically boosted speed, he was feeling extremely tired. It seems that he had gotten cocky when his peers from the old world encouraged him. Now he knew why despite people being able use magic in his old world they still had a gym class. It was for situations like theses where one had to keep their magic sustained. Internally making a note to go over ALL the basics once he reached a town, he pushed forwards hoping that a town would appear soon or at least before the night hit since he had no clue what nights would be like in this world.

After another 5 minutes of wind boosted walking he was gasping for breath. Looking back, he noticed that the procession was quite far away and would probably have a hard time seeing him now. Moving towards the forest that lined the road he hoped that by heading in and waiting for them to pass he would be given time to recover. It would also provide him with time to eat and make camp since it looked like it was going to get dark soon.

Reaching the forest line, he headed in looking for a good place to set up camp. After about 15 minutes of walking straight he found a sufficient clearing to make camp. Collapsing onto his knees, Saito starting gasping now that he stopped channeling the wind magic that boosted himself. 5 minutes later Saito was setting up a tent that he had taken from one of his boxes and guzzling down a bottle of water.

Setting down the bottle he brought out a portable stove from a box and started making a porridge, while not the best thing he could eat, he had to ration everything he had since a town was still not in sight and he didn't know if the currency from his world worked in this one.

Finishing up his porridge Saito resealed the stove and entered the tent he had set up. Inside he brought out another box and opened it, unveiling all the books that he had brought with him. Pushing aside some of his other books he looked for that introductory book to magic that he was sure he had packed along with the others. After about a minute or so he finally found it and cracked it open to start reading.

...

Tabitha had been watching the boy like a hawk ever since he started speeding up and when she saw him take a turn into the forest despite the distance she was curious as to why he went into the forest. As they passed the place where he entered the forest a part of her was curious about him and wanted to enter to look for him, but the rational part of her mind reminded her that she was on a mission to escort the caravan to the border, so she shook off that train of thought.

However it seemed like she wasn't the only one curious about the boy. It seemed that some of her fellow mages had also seen him enter the forest and they were debating whether or not they should go after him as well. Their curiosity was getting the better of them and they had nearly headed into the forest until the leader of the caravan said, "We'll be setting camp in 30 minutes, in another 2 hours it will start getting dark, no point in pushing ourselves too hard especially after what happened today, eh?"

Tabitha just nodded while the other mages just smirked at being reminded of how their group took down a group of 10 orcs. This would definitely help their reputation when they finished school. A group of 8 in training students taking down a group of 10 orcs that would normally take 15 hunters working together.

After 30 minutes, they stopped and moved off the roadside to set up camp. After that was done they brought out some of the food their horses were carrying and started chowing down.

Through all this Tabitha just stayed quiet, observing the people around her with a stoic gaze. It wasn't until she saw the caravan leader talking with their official leader that she turned her attention back to her group. It seemed that the caravan leader was curious as to why they didn't bring back any of the dead bodies of the orcs to sell since their hides were somewhat resistant to magic and made decent armor while their blood was a useful regent to potion crafting and their bones were study enough to make decent tools.

It was here that the group of mages were stumped that they actually forgot about the value an orc had especially considering it was a B-class monster and there were 10 of them. That made it at least on par with a low A-class monster in terms of value. It seemed that the caravan leader saw heir depressed looks and came to the conclusion that the group of mages completely forgot about the value the orcs bodies had. Shaking his head he walked off to let the mages wallow in their self-pity for missing out on the big money.

Tabitha looked up at the night sky and saw that it was getting late and decided that she would go to sleep so that she had enough energy for tomorrow They should be reading the Tristain border tomorrow at around midday so anything between now and then were still inside her mission parameters.

...

Saito was NOT having a good night. He was going over the basics of the book quite peacefully and in doing so, he found out that a healthy body led to longer endurance when using magic that affected the body. It seemed that he had gotten lazy since he graduated a year ago since he didn't seem to have such a problem before he graduated. Then he also found out that as his body deteriorated from lack of exercise his magic followed suit making it weaker then he last remembered when he was at his peak. All in all it painted a bleak picture of how he had fallen since he had graduated.

Things got worse when he heard growls coming from the forest around him. Fearing the worst, he quickly got up and packed his tent away back in its box and started heading out of the forest back onto the road. However it wasn't meant to be as it seemed that a pack of something was quickly gaining on his position if the trembling of the ground was any indication. Thinking quickly Saito quickly used his magic to float up to a high tree branch and braced himself for the worst.

As the noise got closer, he smelled a horrible stench that seemed to be a mix of moldy socks left out in the sun for too long. Pinching his nose to keep the smell out he was treated to a sight of hideous creatures rushing past below him. Quietly waiting from his position above, he watched as they seemed to pause at where his camp used to be and then started sniffing around. In doing so it led them to below his tree and it seemed that they were confused as to why the scent just suddenly stopped right there.

To Saito it seemed that whatever this creature was lacked intelligence, but he quietly maintained his position above the tree hoping they would ignore the anomaly and move away. He could feel adrenaline slowly pumping through his veins in case he had to fight his way out this mess. While he was sure he could run, these creatures seemed tireless especially considering their size compared to him. They were at least 6'6" compared to his 5'7" and he had no doubt that one hit from them would leave him with more then just a broken bone.

Quietly invoking wind magic he blew his scent towards a random direction and hoped that they still relied on their sense of smell. To his relief the creatures followed the scent and soon they had disappeared from sight, but he could still hear them slowly following his scent. So he didn't let his guard down until at least 10 minutes after they left when he was sure they wouldn't be coming back. Collapsing onto the branch he was standing on he gasped for breath Now that the danger seemed to have passed the adrenaline was no longer pumping and he felt extremely cold. Knowing that it was cold sweat from fear he thought "_Was this decision of pursuing adventure really right now?"_. Getting up into a sitting position he tried calming himself down. After about 10 minutes he calmed down enough to stop shivering but that didn't stop his fear from remaining.

Once he got himself under control he started thinking of just what were those creatures. Pausing at this he face-palmed at his idiocy. How the hell could he know anything about whatever those things were when he didn't even know what kind of world he landed in? Sighing he just leaned back onto the bark of the tree and fell asleep almost instantly.

...

It was a new day and Saito who woke up on top of a tree was not in the best of moods. Sleeping on top of said tree has left his back feeling sore as hell and he wanted to get to a town today so he could sleep in a proper bed. Already he was missing the comforts of his original world. However he quickly shook off those thoughts. He had decided that he wanted adventures, not boring day to day activities, so he would preserve and see more of this world. Already his sense of adventure was flaring from when he remembered seeing whatever those creatures were and now he wanted to learn what they were as soon as possible.

Barely containing his excitement Saito got up and started stretching to get rid of the kinks in his body. Though he made a mental note to have an exercise regime in the future so that his body wouldn't atrophy. He had no intention of having a repeat of yesterday where he was tired out after using magic for less then 10 minutes. Getting out of the forest, he noticed that there were deep imprints in the ground, as if a large group had run off in the direction that he was traveling from yesterday. Shrugging he started heading in the same direction as he had yesterday hoping a town would be close.

After an hour he came across an empty site as if a group was here yesterday. Thinking that it was the procession from yesterday he slowed down his pace so that he wouldn't catch up. While it was highly unlikely that he would catch up to a group riding on horses, he didn't want to take any chances.

Another hour later and Saito was starting to lose hope that a town was nearby since there was no signs in sight that indicated a town was nearby and he couldn't see anything around him that resembled a town, except that large lake to his right. Sighing Saito un-clipped one of his boxes from his belt and opened it allowing the contents to be released. Sighing again at how everything in the box came out, he made a note to find a way to make it so that he could control what came out instead of everything. Shuffling through the tent from last night, he picked up the book on basics and resealed everything else. As he walked he continued reviewing the basics of magic from his world, making sure to mark down areas that peaked his interest, things that he had forgotten, things that could help him in this new world and ideas that could branch out from what he knew.

He walked for about 3 hours before he started to feel the earth shake again. Turning to the source of the shaking, his eyes widened as a dust cloud was quickly approaching him and judging from the shaking it was a pretty large group. Looking for a place that would provide ample cover, he was disappointed to see that he was in an open rode with the closest thing he had to cover being a couple of rocks on one side and a gigantic lake on the other. Quickly using wind magic, he propelled himself upwards hoping that he could maintain his height as he waited for the dust cloud to approach.

As it did, he saw that it was the same group of creatures from last night. While he didn't exactly see what they were, the smell was more then enough to give them away. Nothing he had ever experienced could've smelled as bad as this group of creatures. As soon as the creatures saw Saito floating in the air ahead of them, the leader (presumably) let out a massive roar that caused Saito to cover his ears in pain.

Looking up at the creature that roared, he saw a look that closely resembled rage on the leading creatures face. Having no idea as to why it was mad, Saito remained floating hoping that they wouldn't bother him. Though it wasn't meant to be as it picked up one of the rocks by the roadside and hurled it at Saito. Saito panicked for a second when he saw the rock that was heading him, but quickly pushed himself out of the way with a burst of wind magic. Quickly hovering towards the lake Saito hoped that the creatures would be scared of water. As luck would have it, the creatures were indeed scared of water, but then the entire group started hurling the large rocks at Saito from the shoreline and Saito was hard pressed to dodge since he didn't have good control over his wind magic in mid-air and all it would take was one lucky hit to take him out.

Hoping that they would run out of ammunition to throw, Saito weathered the storm of rocks that headed his way courtesy of whatever those creatures were. It took about 10 minutes of the creatures hurling rocks at him from afar but soon enough they ran out of projectiles to throw and after another 5 minutes of them glaring at Saito, the leader roared again and the group headed back in the direction that they had originally come from.

Saito on the other hand as gasping for breath as he continued floating in mid-air. He had expended a large amount of his magical energy keeping himself afloat and maneuvering out of the path of the projectiles had left his mental state in shambles. Especially since the overwhelming fear he felt from that group of creatures left a deep impression on him. Enduring another 5 minutes of floating in mid-air to make sure that the group had indeed left , Saito floated back to the shoreline and lowered himself down. Immediately after doing so, he collapsed on his knees for the umpteenth time in 2 days. Gasping for breath again, Saito waited for the adrenaline to stop pumping again.

After catching his breath again, he quickly got up and started moving as fast as he could in the direction he was originally traveling in. A look of self-pity adorning his face as he did so.

As he walked his mind was a whirlwind of activity. Mostly himself pitying his wish for adventure and for thinking that his world was dull. It hadn't even been 3 days and he already had 2 near-death encounters in this new world. At this rate his heart would fail before he had a proper adventure. However another part of his mind chided himself for thinking such thoughts. He wanted adventure since his old one didn't offer any, now that he was in this world he was having second thoughts. This wsn't what Saito Hiraga was suppose to think like. He was suppose to be a genius that wanted excitement in his life and now that he had it, he should enjoy instead of fearing it. A smile stretched across Saitos face as he was once more reminded of why he had come to this world. He was a genius that wanted excitement in his life in the form of adventures, and now that he had it, he should enjoy it to the fullest. Who cares that his life was in danger, this was what he desired since as far as he could remember. Quickening his pace once more, Saito moved ahead hoping that a town would _really_ show up soon since he wanted information on the world more then ever.

...

Tabitha's group had been traveling for half a day since they started in the morning and by now they were almost at the city of Taft, the merchant city that sat on the border between Tristania and Gallia. Soon their mission would end and they would be allowed to return to Gallia Magic Academy for their final semester.

As their group traveled, Tabitha wondered what happened to the boy that they had passed yesterday. Did he get ahead of them by cutting through the forest? Was he still behind them trekking after the route they had just passed? Pausing at this, Tabitha wondered why a boy she barely knew was occupying her mind. Shaking her head she returned her attention to the road in front of her once again.

After about 3 hours of traveling, the city of Taft was finally in sight and while she was happy they were close, she reserved herself to a small smirk while her fellow mages let out whoops of joy and the caravan started to celebrate that they were nearly there.

Entering the city their group bid good bye to the merchants. Now that there mission was complete all they had to do was to relax for the day before heading back to the Gallia Magical Academy tomorrow to complete their assignment. Tabitha just headed to an inn so that she could put away her stuff and explore the city, after all it was her first time outside of the Gallia Magical Academy alone and she wanted to see all the sights that she had heard about. Most notably the Lake of the Water Spirit that she had heard about from her mother.

While Tabitha headed towards an inn, her teammates decided that now was a good time to go drinking since they had been on the road for a week and they hadn't been allowed to drink because they had to remain sober in case of a monster attack.

As Tabitha passed a couple of bars and notice boards, she noticed that the area that they had just come from had an infestation of orcs and that they were looking for a group of people to exterminate them. The date for the mission was in 3 days and that if they wanted to be part of the raid group, they show up at Taft center square at noon. While Tabitha wanted to go, she had to leave tomorrow, so she just walked away, back towards finding an inn.

...

With Saito he was still walking while reading his book, however he had a pen out and was marking stuff down inside the book every now and then. As he passed a rock formation, he paused and looked at it. Feeling ambient magic in the air, he moved closer and saw that this place was a natural hot spot for magic as indicated by the magic that was slowly being released from the center of the rock formation.

Bringing out a piece of paper, he got to work on sketching the rock formation and everything around it. After all this rock formation could help facilitate the flow of magic and while he wanted adventures, jotting down new things was also a form of adventure. After all who knew what could be derived from such information.

After that was done, Saito resumed his path walking down the road while occasionally drawing pictures on the sketch and alternating between reading his book.

...

It wasn't until a day later, where in the morning Saito finally found himself in front of the gates to a city. Walking through the gates with little fanfare, though his clothes did garner strange looks when he walked by. Heading towards the center of town in hopes of getting information. He passed a group that was heading towards the gate he just entered. Though he didn't notice anything about them, the same couldn't be said for a certain blue-haired girl who narrowed her eyes as she saw him walk past her group, but continued walking nevertheless.

As Saito approached the center of town, he saw lots of inns lined up next to each other with a board of some sort in front of them. Taking a closer look, it was an information board mixed with a requests board. Thanking whatever deity that was up there, Saito started perusing the information on the board.

Apparently he was in the Taft, the neutral trading city between Tristania and Gallia. While the words seemed like a mix of old style French and Italian, his translation spell was able to give him a general outline of what was being said. It wouldn't be long before the spell got used to what he was viewing and he would soon see it as natural. Smiling again at how useful magic was Saito started looking at the requests section.

Apparently hired hands were in short supply since a lot of requests were looking for someone who could help move stuff around for a store if the names were anything to go by. Saito debated about taking some of these requests, while there were better requests like hunting certain animals or collecting stuff from nearby fields, he needed information and money. While the requests to hunt would no doubt give him money, they didn't provide him with information that he needed.

Looking through the requests, he found one that suited his tastes. While dish washing was something he didn't generally like doing, doing it would provide him to gather information freely since mixed with his weird clothes people would mistake him for a foreigner and think he was ignorant to how things worked here, so he could gather information without attracting attention. Well at least not as much attention as he would normally get if he just asked around randomly.

Pulling the request off the board, he started asking some of the shop keepers where the "Charming Fairies" were located. It took the better part of an hour until he found it and by then it was around 10 o' clock if he had to guess from the position of the sun. Slowly entering the place, he was greeted to the sight of different females catering the different groups of men, most with scars on their faces drinking something. While there were female customers they were far and few. Though all the weapons all over the place did paint an intimidating picture.

Looking around for the owner, he moved up to the counter where a female was manning it. When he approached, the female looked up and raised an eyebrow. Most likely at his clothes. When she asked, " What do you want stranger?", he showed her the request that he had taken from the board. When she the request, she nodded her head and said, " Come along, let's introduce you to your new boss.". Raising an eyebrow at this, Saito asked, " Just like that I'm hired?". She turned around and laughed and said, "Of course not, first you have to meet our boss and see if he approves of you.". At this Saito nodded, if he was just hired on the spot, he would be worried since that implied something was seriously wrong, even if he had no experience with jobs, he knew that being hired on the spot either meant something was going on in the background or something had happened to cause them to desperately need help.

As they headed towards the back of the pub, Saito saw what looked like another request board near the back of the bar where people were crowding around it for some reason. Shrugging it off, he continued following the woman. When they reached a door that had the words "My Lady Scarron" on a plaque, Saito presumed she would be the boss, however when she stopped in front of the door and said, " Brace yourself", he was understandably confused. Why would he need to brace himself?

His answer became clear when she opened the door and he entered. the _thing_ in front of him was an abomination. It was a male who had make up on wearing some sort tight clothing that barely covered his waist and chest. Compounded with the fact that there was hair all over his body, Saito had to work hard to not run out screaming like a girl. Was this why there were no male workers here? Was it because this _thing_ scared them off or was it some more sinister reason?

Mechanically walking up to said _thing_, he braced himself and timidly said, " Is this request still open?" while showing him the request he had shown the woman.

Seeing the request, the _things_ eyes lit up and started babbling on about how finally someone had come forth to take the request and that they were running ragged with all these hunters coming into town and merchants selling their goods that they just didn't have enough _time_ to finish up all those dishes. Though Saito tried his best to blot out all the colorful words the _thing_ used, it was proving to be pretty hard.

After about 5 minutes of Saito trying to retain his sanity in the face of this _thing_, it finally seemed to notice that Saito looked extremely nervous and started talking in a much more understandable language. " Ahh, sorry about that, I tend to get very excited when I meet new people, and you're the first new face I've seen in a long time, by the way my names Scarron, though I prefer being referred to as mi mademoiselle." he said.

At this Saito refrained from gagging at the last part and replied, " I'm Saito, Nice to meet you too"

Once this was done, Scarron immediately started dragging him out the door. As they passed the woman, Scarron turned around and said, " Alright Jessica, you can head back up to the front, I'll get this newcomer settled in."

Leading Saito further towards the back, Scarron started humming a tune that Saito had no clue what it was. When they reached a door that was labeled "Kitchen", Scarron finally turned around and said, "Well this is where you'll be working, once you finish, do come find me again, until then.. good luck" before walking away.

Saito just stared at his(?) retreating back and turned towards the door, quickly opening the door and entering, he was treated to the sight of _lots _of unwashed dishes and what sort of eldritch abomination was that?! Was that a slime living in the sink? Looking back, maybe this was why no one wanted to do this request, it wasn't because they scared off the workers, but rather when they saw the work space, they freaked out and ran. After all that was what a normal person would do that Saito was debating whether he should do the same thing. However his need for money and information outweighed his common sense. Bracing himself, he got to work on cleaning the dishes while hopefully getting rid of that abomination in the sink.

...

It was 10 hours later that Saito finally finished washing all the dishes. In that time span, he had to fight off week old molds from the dishes if he was right, fought off some sort of transparent tentacle monster that somehow climbed up the draining pipe and washing well over a thousand dirty dishes in his opinion. His back was killing him and he felt like his eyes were bleeding tears from the monotony of washing so many dishes. Now however the kitchen was near spotless instead of the dirty as hell cave he had stepped into this morning.

Blearily getting up, Saito headed out of the kitchen towards Scarrons room to tell him he was done. What he did not expect was for Scarron to be at the kitchen door looking as if he was preparing to enter.

When Scarron saw the door open up, he showed a surprised look on his face before it widened further when he saw Saitos look. While his front shirt was dirtied from all the washing, his face was the picture of tiredness. It didn't help that Saito was not physically as fit as he would've liked but that was the price he paid for being lazy and taking everything for granted and whilst he could've used magic to speed up the dish washing process, it seemed to have slipped his mind when he got started.

Scarron raised an eyebrow at Saitos tired face before looking into the kitchen where his face registered surprise again when he saw the insides. While it wasn't spotless, it was a lot cleaner then it had been in weeks. Nodding in understanding at the tiredness in Saitos face he said, "Well, it seems that you have finished cleaning the dishes as the request had asked, but you didn't have to clean the kitchen as well. Here is your pay of 100 Èclu, and as gratitude for cleaning the kitchen, you can stay in one of the free rooms for tonight."

Saito nodded his tired head at this and quietly asked, " Which room is free?"

Scarron replied with," Ask Jessica up front, the woman you talked to this morning, tell her Scarron allowed it."

Nodding again Saito headed back towards the front from what he could remember. At the front he saw the woman he had talked to this morning and prepared to tell her what Scarron had told him, but the moment she saw him and his disheveled state she held up a hand to forestall any words coming out of his mouth and said, " Let me guess.. he told you that you could stay for the night because of the good work you did?"

Nodding, she sighed and said," Well room 205 is free, feel free to use it for the night, if he sent you up front instead of letting you out the back door, he must've been impressed with how clean you made the pig sty." Handing him a key Saito started for the stairs.

Heading up the stairs, Saito was inflicted with a sense of loss, he had spent the whole day in a kitchen cleaning dishes and he only fulfilled one part of his objective. Entering the room, he closed the door and locked it. Collapsing onto the bed Saito promised himself that he would go out fishing for information again tomorrow, but for now he was too tired to care. Quickly falling asleep Saitos last thoughts were "_Maybe this world won't be so bad, a request board like those mangas he had read and creatures/ monsters that he had no idea of."_

* * *

**AN: So I have no excuse what so ever for not making new chapters for my other fics, maybe it was because of laziness or whatever but I just felt like starting something new since it was a new year. This here was what I had thought up of, a completely AU setting of FoZ, while there will be some similarities, it'll mostly be what I can add in that sounds plausible but I could be close-minded, so new ideas are appreciated.**

**Out for now.**


	2. Chapter 2

Saito woke up to the comfy feeling of a bed beneath him. Staying like that for a while longer, he savored the feeling of a bed that he had not been in for the past 2 days. Who knew that when he started this crazy adventure that he would miss the feeling of a bed? Camping was fun and all, but it got impractical when he had to stay on guard throughout the whole night in case something came upon him while he was sleeping. A tent would get in the way of him fleeing, so he had resorted to sleeping with his back to a tree keeping an eye to his front.

Doing so had deprived him of a lot of sleep, but it was better to be safe then sorry. In time he would probably get used to it, but for now he was still feeling like he was jet-lagged.

After another 30 minutes of savoring the feeling of a bed Saito finally got up and started for the shower that was attached to the room. Another thing to be thankful for was that this world had indoor plumbing. How he would've freaked out if when he wanted to use the bathroom, he had to go out and do it in the wild. Just thinking about that sent shivers down his spine.

20 minutes later and Saito was leaving the room and heading downstairs. When he reached the ground floor, he said good bye to Jessica who was still manning the counter and headed back out into the city. Pausing to look at the request board posted in front of the Charming Fairies, he looked for another request that would hopefully satisfy his thirst for information. While he had some currency from this world, he was still unsure as to the value they had. While Scarron looked like a decent person who wouldn't cheat a persons hard work, Saito still worried about the possibility of the money Scarron gave him not being worth much.

Looking through the various requests, another caught his eye, apparently the Taft Library was in need help, apparently they had just received a sizable donation of books from the capital of Tristania as part of their yearly cleaning. Now they needed help to sort all the books they had received. However Saito wasn't interested in sorting the books, what he was interested in was the fact that this city had a library. A place that contained all the information he would ever need. Smiling to himself, he started asking around for directions to the library and while his clothes caused quite a few raised eyebrows, no one called him out on it. Since this was a merchant city, it was probably not strange to see people in strange clothes.

It took about 30 minutes to reach the library since he had to keep asking for directions, but in his defense it was well worth it. While searching for the library he had gotten a rough idea of how much money he currently had. It seemed that one èclu was about the same as ¥100, or at least he thought so since he gleaned it from catching bits of the prices from merchants selling their wares along the road and whenever he passed a store.

Arriving at the library, he was impressed by how large it was, it would easily rival a mansion back home and that was being generous. Then again, he didn't know much in the way of customs in this world. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the library, for some reason he knew that after stepping out of this place, his world would most likely be thrown upside down.

10 steps in and he found himself outside again after another 10 steps. Apparently there was too many books from the capital of Tristania and they had closed off the library until everything could be sorted and added to the bookshelves. Cursing the horrible timing of such an obstacle, Saito walked back inside to say he was going to take the request for helping sort the library but he was rebuffed again. Apparently in order to take a damn request, one had to have the damn request in hand. Huffing quietly to himself he started back towards the Charming Fairies to grab the request.

Luckily it only took 30 minutes round trip before he was back at the library with request in hand, but the moment he entered and showed the request to that damn person at the front desk, it was promptly ripped to pieces and the only words he got in return were " Sorry, seems like we have enough helps, do come back in a week when the library will be open again"

Saito walked out of the library woodenly, he continued walking out of the city of Taft woodenly, he walked into the forest near the entrance woodenly. Inside the forest he screamed to the skies for 1 minute before it devolved into cursed muttering of how he would cause untold amounts of pain onto the person who denied him his information twice.

After he was sufficiently calmed down, Saito headed back towards the city of Taft, however when he entered, the guards at the entrance looked at him strangely as if he was a mad man. Ignoring their looks, Saito headed for a nearby request board to see if their was anything else he could do in the meantime that would provide him with the information he would need on this world. At least enough so that he would understand the customs and until the library was done doing whatever the hell it was doing.

Browsing through the request board, he found nothing that would help him at all with his understanding of this world and it was starting to get on his nerves. He contemplated breaking into the library but for some reason, breaking into a library sent him into a new low he didn't think he would ever be capable of feeling. Seriously? Breaking into a library? It made it sound like he was one of those desperate people back home who lived in the library their entire life. Mentally shivering at the prospect, he continued looking for a request. Curiously enough, the requests seemed to be ranked. Ranging from F-ranks to D-ranks. Mentally frowning, he remembered the job request for the dishes to be F-rank. So was the request to help sort the library. If he went with the conventional ranking system used in mangas and RPGs, then wasn't D-rank usually the lowest? Did that mean he was doing requests that were considered beyond easy and inching into the lazy as hell zone?

Looking over all the request with a closer eye, he saw that F-ranks were mostly comprised of chores that anyone could do. Though all of them seemed to be in this city. Maybe that played a role in the difficulty rating? Meanwhile E-ranks seemed to focus on the gathering of materials if all these weird exotic names that sound like ingredients are anything to go by. While D-ranks were the same thing as E-ranks, though it seemed that you had to kill something for it instead. Looking across the board, he looked for any C-ranks or B-ranks or even A-ranks. However it seemed that they weren't posted on the board. Mentally sighing, Saito looked over the request once again with a fine eye, looking for a request that would tide him over until the library was done.

After 30 minutes of staring at the board and attracting weird looks from people passing him, he decided to do the request that had _some_ combat involved. While it was a guess, he was sure collecting gnomes essences from mudmen involved combat of _some_ sort. Heading towards the location while asking for help occasionally he finally reached the place that sent out the request. Though he was surprised by the fact that the store in question was a shabby looking store that had a sign that had "Dion's Alchemic Concoctions" written across it.

Quietly entering the store, he was greeted to a smell similar to that of a rotten fish. Enduring the smell, he walked up to the counter and rung the bell on it hoping the owner would hurry up since he couldn't stand the smell. After about 2 minutes he finally heard sound from the door behind the counter. When it opened, Saito was not prepared for the purple smoke that billowed out of it. Quickly using his hand to try and blow the smoke away, he saw the person that emerged.

Long blonde hair that almost covered his eyes tied back in a pony tail, with clothes that were red in color but also provided protection if he needed to enter combat. All in all, the person would've looked like a shounen if it wasn't for the fact that he had a crazy bags under his eyes. It looked like he hadn't slept in days, and the swaying he did while walking to the counter did not paint a good picture for Saito.

When he reached the counter he tried to smile and say welcome, but the look on his face certainly didn't make Saito feel welcome. It looked like he was greeting someone that should by all rights be dead. Forcing a smile onto his face, he held up the request and suddenly the person was all smiles. When he said,"Oh.. Did you find the gnome essence?" Saito was confused. He expressed it as much by tilting his head and saying, "Excuse me?"

The person just looked at Saito like he was retarded and said,"That request in your hand , didn't you complete it?"

Looking at request in said hand Saito looked up and said, "No?"

The sound of a palm meeting face echoed through the shop and the person asked, "Then why did you bring it here?"

At this Saito got more confused and said,"Don't I have to bring it here to accept the request?"

The sound echoed again and this time Saito could hear the person cursing about idiots and newbies. Curious as to why he said that,he asked and the persons eyes snapped up to Saito accusingly. They seemed to stare at him as if he was the embodiment of evil before closing again and the person sighed. The person then asked if Saito wasn't from around here. Smelling a chance at finally getting _some_ information, Saito nodded his head. Sighing again the guy in front of him just sat down on a stool behind the counter and started explaining to Saito the request in hand. Apparently, request papers of E-ranks and up were made of the money you would receive for completing said task. This method was made so that people wouldn't just complete the request and have their requester's run out on them and not pay. It had been something that was pretty common not even 10 years ago, but since this method came out, requests were completed the moment the request paper deems the request done, or the requester deemed it done. Saito was amazed at this tidbit of information, apparently the request paper in this world was _semi-sentinent_ if they could deem when a request was complete.

Saito was also fascinated by this but decided he had enough information regarding the paper for now. So he asked about the request itself. The guy seemed to perk up at this and launched into an explanation about how he, as an alchemist was supposed to make advances in the field of alchemy. However since he lacked the reagents required to do some of the experiments he wanted, he put up the request in Saitos hand in hopes of someone gathering it for him. However when Saito showed up with it in hand he got his hopes up only to find out Saito was a newbie as he had been called.

Saito kinda felt bad about getting the guys hopes up, but he couldn't help but ask why he didn't try and gather the reagents himself since his body build indicated he knew _some_ form of combat. At this the person froze and smiled sadly and said, " While my body makes it look like I'm used to combat, I'm an alchemist first before I'm a fighter. Also mudmen are notoriously difficult for someone like me since I don't have magic which they are weak to."

At this I perked up and asked, "magic?". The guy nodded and said, "Yes, magic, its a trait that is specific to nobles and people of elfish descent. While there are some normal people who can do magic, they are far and few because most of them are self-taught, unless they visit the city of Romalia where magic is widespread."

At this Saito had a contemplative look on his face, apparently magic was something that only a few people had in this region and it was a rare trait, meaning it was hereditary. Deciding to keep his ability to use magic under wraps for now he asked the more important question. "Where would I find these mudmen?". At this the guy looked up in surprise at Saito. Saito just smirked and said, "While I don't know how to do magic, I really want to see if these mudmen are as hard as you say they are to beat physically."

The person just stared at Saito like he was an idiot, then he sighed again and said, "The West entrance, walk about a mile and the road will branch out, take the left path and after another mile or so, you should see a cave, the mudmen generally reside near wet spots. Good luck."

Saying his piece the guy shambled back into the room he came from. Saito just stared at the weird sight. Though deep down Saito felt enraged that the guy would say all that in such a way that it was as if Saito was guaranteed to fail.

Angrily getting up, Saito headed towards the door. Outside Saito angrily stomped towards the west entrance while occasionally asking for directions. When he did the people would quickly point in a direction and move away form him. His angry face must've showed because people started moving away form him as he moved. His thoughts raged on how he would prove that damn person wrong. He had originally intended to beat the mudmen magically, but now that he was so blatantly looked down upon, he would beat down those pieces of mud physically to prove the bastard wrong.

Leaving through the west entrance, Saito walked for about 30 minutes before he saw the fork in the road, taking the left as instructed he continued walking while his mind slowly calmed down from its rage. As he walked though, his mind slowed down enough that he was cursing his hotheadedness, he had no weapon and they specifically said they were immune to physical attacks and he promised he wouldn't use magic. Despite it being a rage induced decision, he still wanted to prove the guy wrong.

Another 30 minutes later, and he was at the cave entrance. Seeing no nearby light source, he thought about his options. Since he promised to not use magic, he couldn't resort to the tools in his boxes, so he had to do it naturally and walk into a dark cave.

Second thoughts were starting to emerge. Shaking his head, Saito took a deep breath and walked in. 20 steps later and he was surprised to see that the cave was lit with torches every now and then. Inwardly sighing in relief, Saito started looking for these so called mudmen, what he got were lots of bats attacking him and he had to bat them away while looking for his targets. Though he was rather surprised when he accidently batted one into a spike jutting out of the wall, instantly killing the poor creature. The other bats immediately stopped attacking after seeing one of their brethren die. What really surprised him was a small bag that was definitely larger then the bat itself magically appear right in front of its impaled body. Warily moving to pick it up, he looked at it. It was unremarkable in every way, however when he opened it, he was surprised to see 10 èclus and a bat fang?

His thoughts were, _"What the fuck?"_. Staring the bag in his hands for a minute, he just shook his head and moved that question to the, _must-find-out-later_ list. Continuing his trek into the cave, he heard a squishing sound, turning his head towards the sound, he was greeted to a _thing,_ was the most accurate way to describe it, oozing towards him. It was less then 4 feet and made entirely of mud, it seemed to be dragging its body along trailing mud everywhere. Looking at it for maybe 10 seconds as it approached him, he came to the conclusion that it was a mudman. Thinking that perhaps the person back there was crazy for having a hard time beating this thing, Saito moved to strike it down. However when he hit the thing with his fist, all that happened was a squishing noise coming from where his fist sunk into its body.

Staring at the thing with his mouth opened Saito just uttered, "What. the. fuck?". Pulling his fist back, he was shocked to find it stuck as if it was trapped in the mud. Moving his arm repeatedly up and down in hopes of dislodging the thing holding it down , he felt his arm slowly begin to burn from _something_. When that happened panic began to set in and Saito started hitting it with his other hand. Which also got stuck and by now Saito was in full blown panic mode. Perhaps he should've listened to the and took his thoughts into account. Gritting his teeth, Saito started moving backwards, dragging the thing along with him. Seeing a torch nearby, Saito grew a devious grin. moving his hands around inside the mudman was weird but oh well, whatever happened next was not his problem.

Heaving the mudman upwards, he slowly brought it off its feet. Here Saito made a mental note that even though it were less then 4 feet and made of mud, it was surprisingly heavy. Immediately his arms started protesting the strain, but he endured. Moving the mudman to the torch on the wall, Saito was satisfied to see it start squirming as it neared the fire. Saito grew a sadistic grin and thrust it into the torch. Immediately the mud started falling off the mudman and he felt his fingers being burned from being so near the fire. However he endured and when he felt the mud lose cohesion, he quickly withdrew his arms from the mud. Popping free with a squelch, he looked over his hands and while they were red from the heat, there were no burns. looking at the mudman hanging on the still alight torch, It let out a weird ass moan before dripping onto the floor and remained there.

Then a bag popped out of it somehow. Looking at the bag as if it broke the rules of reality, Saito slowly bent down to take a look at its contents. Opening it, he counted 15 èclus, a smaller bag, and a brown marble sized ball. Picking up the small bag, he opened it and saw some sort of gold powder inside. Shrugging, Saito took out the request paper to see if he was done. there at the bottom, he saw a flashing red text that flashed "1/20" every 5 seconds. Looking at the request Saito banged his head against the wall. Apparently he only had 1 out of the needed 20 and he had to get 19 more.

Sighing, Saito headed deeper into the cave to search for more mudmen.

...

An untold amount of time later, Saito emerged from the cave pale as a ghost and dirtied. Crying out in joy at seeing the sun, he did a victory dance that lasted a minute before he stopped, and started dragging himself back down the path he had originally come from. Tied to his belt from a string hung a bag the size of a cantaloupe that made jangling sounds as he walked. It was 2 hours later that Saito found himself back at the entrance of Taft and he was tired as hell. Heading towards the only inn he could see, he entered it and shambled towards the counter. Walking up to the counter, he croaked out, "how much for a room for a night?". Unknown to Saito, in his tired state of mind, he had ended back at the Charming Fairies and Jessica who was still manning the counter said,"it'll be 200 èclus for a night."

Bringing out a bag that contained the amount, Saito nearly fell asleep while waiting for the person in front of him to finish counting. When she was done, she handed him a key and said," Room 205 is free". Which Saito just nodded to and shambled up the stairs towards the room. Once inside he just moved to the bed and collapsed. Asleep before he even hit the bed.

His dreams were haunted by the moans of mudmen that threatened to suffocate him with their own bodies.

...

In the morning, Saito got up feeling extremely well rested. Then he looked down and saw how dirty he was and recoiled in disgust. Quickly entering the shower, he washed himself of all the dirt and grime that had accumulated from yesterdays _adventure_.

Getting out of the shower, he saw that his room had dried mud trailing from the entrance of the room all the way to the bed which was stained with dried mud as well. Sighing, he quickly used some water magic to wash off all the mud and then used wind magic to dry off the newly cleaned bed sheets.

Making sure that he had everything he needed, Saito headed down the stairs and had a surprised look when he saw that it was Jessica at the counter. Apparently in his sleep-addled mind, he had got a room in the Charming Fairies, the same room as he had before. Shrugging off the coincidence, Saito nodded to her as he walked out the front door.

Heading towards "Dion's Alchemic Concoctions" so that he could turn in his request. Saito thought about what he learned first-hand yesterday. Apparently, all things killed would magically drop a bag containing anything that could be used. Saito had found that freaky at first but then decided to roll with it. No point in trying to solve a mystery as crazy as this. Then he found out that not everything was guaranteed. Sometimes the things he killed dropped nothing while sometimes it would drop more then one. At one point Saito wanted to commit suicide since the last gnome essence just wouldn't drop no matter how many mudmen he killed via burning at make-shift stake. He silently resolved to never purposely limit himself in anger ever again. If he had magic it would've been so simple to just heat the damn mudmen up until they all melted, but nooooo, his damn pride had to rear its head and nearly get him killed if not for the torches that lined the cave every now and then.

Soon enough he was at the shabby store and walking in, he grimaced at the smell once more. Ringing the counter bell, he stepped back in case the weird purple smoke decided to billow out again. As luck would have it, purple smoke did indeed billow out, this time mixed with yellow fumes. Grimacing at the smell that was worse than the original smell of the shop, Saito repressed the urge to gag.

Out came the guy from yesterday and the bags under his eyes seemed to have deepened even more. Looking around he saw Saito again and had a look of surprise on his face. Saito himself just raised a hand in greeting and said, "Yo!"

The guy just stared and after about 30 seconds asked, "What do you want?"

At this Saito just took out the request and showed it to the guy. the guy in question just said, "So?"

Sighing at such an uncooperative person, he reached for the bag attached to his belt and rummaged around till he picked up a small bag and put it on top of the counter after moving back towards it. The guy looked at it and then back at the request in Saito hand. trembling, he asked, "Are these...?"

Saito just nodded and said, "Yep".

The guy moved his trembling hand and slowly opened the small bag and when he saw the 20 gnomes essences he let out a whoop of joy and started dancing around. Apparently his fatigue was forgotten now that he had gotten whatever he needed. Watching him dance for another minute Saito patiently waited before saying, "Oi, why hasn't this request been complete?"

This stopped the joyous attitude of the guy. Looking at the request, he said, "Mission Complete". After saying that the paper in Saitos hand morphed into a bag that had 400 èclus taped to the front of it. Staring at the bag that suddenly replaced the paper, Saito was once more rendered speechless. Sighing again he just went with it. No point in trying to kill anymore brain cells trying to figure it out.

Taking a closer glance around the store, he was surprised to see a request board to the right of the counter. Going over to it, he started browsing through the requests listed. Though he was rather confused when he saw so many different requests in a shabby store like this. He asked about it in much nicer words.

The guy just gave Saito that stare again before launching into an explanation about how the request boards were special. Basically they were enchanted boards that were self-updating. If a request was posted, then multiple copies of the same request would appear in random boards throughout the city. Once any copy of the request was taken off the board, then he other copies posted throughout the city would disappear until the request was placed back on said board. To Saito this sounded like all the request boards in the city operated on one wavelength and acted as a computer that sent information throughout the rest of the city. Making a mental note to further research it later, he continued browsing through the requests until he saw a request from the shop he was in.

Picking it off the board, he went over it and headed to the counter and showed it to guy. He just took a glance at it and asked, "You're taking this request?"

Saito just reached into the bag hanging on his waist again and withdrew 10 smaller bags this time. Putting it on the counter, the guy just stared at it before one hand moved to grab one. opening it, he was greeted to the sight of gold dust. Staring up at Saito again who had the request in hand, he stated "Mission Complete" again. The request in Saito's hand disappeared to be replaced by a bag that had 800 taped to it. Now Saito stared at the bag hard. How the hell did something this small contain 800? Opening said bag, he was greeted to the sight of 8 coins that had the number 100 engraved on it.

Of course, the money had to have numbers engraved on it. Frowning slightly at this, he remembered how he ended up tossing a couple of coins that had 10's and 20's engraved on it back in the save. Resisting the urge to scream, he calmly put the bag away and resisted the increasing urge to bang his head against _anything_.

Sighing again, Saito went back to the notice board and started browsing through it. Looking closely he noticed that there were a few more requests from the shop he was in. Logically speaking it wouldn't be uncommon since posting one here meant different copies would appear all over the city in different request boards. So theoretically the guy could post all his requests on his own board and people would who completed their request could come here to look for similar ones to get rid extra things they might not need. It was akin to how a gamer would farm drops and when they headed back to town to complete a mission, they would unexpectedly find themselves with enough materials that would be required to complete a similar mission. Exactly like Saito had done, when he had to gather gold dust. He had an excess from when he originally hunted the mudmen.

Pausing for a moment, he ran the store name through his head a couple of times. Then he turned around and asked,"Hey, this is an alchemic store right? What do you sell in this place?" while sweeping his arm out towards the empty shelves.

At Saitos question the guy seemed to blush and said," Ah... this place just opened so I don't really have much to sell, but that's why I have so many requests on that board, I need a lot of different reagents and I ended up spending all my starting up money on hoping people would complete the requests and help me start up". Halfway through his explanation, he ended up trying to justify why his shop was so empty.

Nodding with an "Ah!" expression on his face, Saito looked like it answered all the questions he needed and in a way it did. Even in his old world, he had heard about how people that wanted to start businesses ended up spending all of money on trying to start up their store up quickly and in the end failed, because of how crazy some of the ideas were. It was similar to this guys situation except the guy seemed to know what he was doing, just no one helped him get the required stuff he needed.

Here Saito paused, the genius part of his mind temporarily taking over. If he helped this shop and it ended up flourishing down the road, he would be considered a benefactor since he helped it start out in a way. As far as he knew, this city was a neutral one at that, so if this shops reputation spread, then more people from different countries would come to peruse it. Though if the shop didn't pick up, then he would've ended up wasting valuable time trying to get it to start. However a feeling in his gut told him that this shop wouldn't fail and that he should stake a claim while he still could.

Coming out of his temporary brainstorming session, he turned to the guy at the counter and proposed his idea. First, he, Saito would help him complete the requests for his shop as needed. So long as he provided information about said request that would aid him in completing it. He would also return half the money from said requests so long as he allowed Saito on as a business partner. This way, Saito would have an opinion in the guys store. Ultimately Saito would just be someone who helped the store pick off. The guy would still run the store however he wished, but if he wanted to add on another business partner so to speak, then he would ask for Saito's opinion as well.

The guy just thought over the proposal in his head and Saito kinda felt bad. He was basically pressuring a sleep-deprived guy into making a decision that could blow up in his face, but Saito preserved, his gut instinct had never failed him so far, and he hoped it wouldn't fail him now. After about 30 minutes of tense silence, the guy finally said, "Very well, I accept"

Saito let out a relieved breath and immediately introduced himself, "Hiraga Saito, new guy in town"

The guy likewise introduced himself, "Wilfred Dion, aspiring alchemist, but call me Wil, its what everyone else calls me."

Well, now Saito had a name to refer to him by instead of "that guy".

Picking up the bag with 800 èclus, he tossed it over to Wil and said, "Since our partner ship starts now, I'll be returning that for now."

Walking up to the request board, he looked for requests that required getting similar things from same locations. He even asked Wil to help him find his on requests that required him to gather stuff from similar locations.

10 minutes later and Saito was exiting the store with 3 requests in hand. While they were simple collecting requests, the danger involved was rather high since he would have to head South of Taft from where he had originally come and head back towards the forest he had camped in. Apparently, Wil needed quite a few mushrooms that grew only in the forest, some branches from a specific tree in the forest and a few bottles of the swamp water from the swamp close to said forest. Wil would've gone by himself, but there had been an infestation of orcs that rampaged through the forests, so he was reluctant to go without protection.

Saito had asked what the orcs looked like and when Wil described them, Saito finally had a name for the group of creatures that chased him. They were apparently a C-class monster, whose blood were used in mid-tier alchemic concoctions while their hides would be useful in making magic resistant armor. At this Saito for some reason was reminded strongly of the game called "Monster Hunter" from his old world.

Monsters that terrorized the people and could be used to craft items? check.

Reagents found in the wild that could be used for items? check.

A guild that regulated certain aspects of the world? check.

A party that could hunt said monsters? check.

Now all he was missing was a damn final boss, and his life in this world would be a simulacrum of Monster Hunter.

...

8 hours later Saito was running the hell out of the forest with all his might. He had even used wind magic to boost the speed he was moving at. For good reason, for there was a mob of orcs chasing him down and from everything Wil had told him regarding them, they were resistant to almost all types of physical attacks that didn't shatter a boulder in one hit. The other way was to conjure a large enough fireball that would counteract the inherent magic resistance in their hides, but Saito specialized in wind magic and not fire, so the only option left to him was run like hell.

Not for the first time, he seemed to curse his luck with these monsters. Throughout the entire time he had been in the forest, the damn orcs had been sniffing his trail looking for him and he had to resort to hiding in a tree and using wind magic to blow his scent in a different direction to get them to leave but they just kept finding their way back to him. Slowing down his collecting speed by a lot. Now that he was done though, he ditched any attempt at subtly and ran a beeline towards the lake that was close by. If there was any information he had gleaned from his personal observation, it was that they disliked water, but only the kind from the lake. When he had originally tossed a globe of water at them, it had only served to enrage them more, but they seemed to be scared of the lakes water so that was where he was heading.

Seeing the shoreline approach, Saito sped up and vaulted himself into the air before holding himself up with his wind magic. True enough, the orcs all stopped at the shoreline and seemed to refuse to enter. At this Saito breathed a sigh of relief and started to slowly float towards town while keeping a wary eye on the orcs. There eyes just kept watching him but made no movement at all as they watched him float away from them. As he floated the leader of the pack seemed to snort and walk back towards the forest, while the rest soon followed.

Saito continued to float along, not letting his guard down for a second, Wil had called them somewhat dumb creatures but Saito didn't believe that for a second, the fact that they retreated at all showed that they weren't as dumb as people expected.

It was another 5 minutes later that Saito decided it was safe enough to walk back towards town after he stopped floating with magic. Though he did find it strange that even though it had been less then a week since he started using magic intensely, he seemed to be less tired the more he used it compared to before. back when he first showed up in this world, his magical limit was about 5 minutes, but now 4 days later, his magic limit seemed to have moved to 8 minutes if he had from how deeply he was breathing. It wasn't as bad as his first day in this world where he was gasping for breath. It was more of a "just got back from a tiring run" breathing.

Deciding he would worry about the anomaly later, Saito started heading back towards Taft. It was going to get dark soon and he had no intention of camping when he could be sleeping in a bed.

Entering Taft again, Saito headed straight for the Charming Fairies Inn, while not the only inn he could choose, it was the only one he knew of and it was pretty comfortable. Walking up to Jessica who was at the counter again he said, "one night." and handed her a bag containing 200 èclus.

Jessica upon looking up and seeing that strange person from before just look at the bag and nodded before handing him a key with 205 on it again.

Taking the key, Saito bid her goodnight and headed up the stairs to the room. He would go to Wil's shop tomorrow to deliver the stuff. It was pretty late by now anyway. Drifting off to sleep, Saito wondered if what he had been doing so far qualified as an adventure so far.

...

It was morning again and Saito was up at 8 and preparing to go to Wil's shop. However he first decided to stop downstairs for breakfast. It seemed that in all his excitement he had forgotten to eat at all yesterday and he wondered how the hell did he not notice at all.

An hour later, Saito emerged from the door feeling more full then he had ever felt in a long time. Heading towards Wil's shop, he saw a large congregation of people at the town square but ignored it in favor of heading towards his destination.

Reaching the shop, he was surprised to see Wil standing outside preparing to lock the store so he called out to him. "Oiii, Wil, what are you doing?"

He saw Wil spin around and look as if he saw a ghost, quickly running up to the approaching Saito, he skidded to a halt when he was within one feet of Saito and grabbed him all over the place. Saito was getting freaked out by what the guy was doing. Shaking off his hands, Saito had an annoyed look as he asked, "What is wrong with you?"

Wil finally regained some color to his face and said with a shaky voice, "Well yesterday, you didn't return so I thought that you had gotten caught by the group of orcs roaming the forest. I was on my way to see the extermination force that was being organized today to tag along and see if I could at least find your remains."

Saito was shocked that Wil just killed him off inside his head all because he didn't show up last night. Putting a hand to his forehead to stave off the incoming headache Saito said, " Yesterday when I got back it was pretty dark, so I decided to go to an inn for the night. I was going to come earlier, but I was hungry so I got delayed."

Wil seemed to relax after hearing the explanation given to him and said, "Oh...Ahahaha, sorry for writing you off as dead then..ahahaha."

"Whatever, lets just get this over with, I got all the materials for the requests." Saito said while holding up one of his boxes. Wil just stared at the box in puzzlement. Saito just walked past Wil and entered the store and Wil quickly followed suit.

Once they were safely in the confines of Wil's store, Wil turned around and asked, "So where exactly is the reagents, I don't exactly see anything on you that could carry all of the stuff."

Saito just grinned and held up his box again with Wil looking at it confusedly. His eye's widened as he saw a ring on Saito's finger to light up in blue fire and widened even further when he saw Saito push the fire into the indent on the box. Immediately afterwards, Wil's jaw dropped as he saw all the reagents appear on his store floor in a flash of blue light. He stared for about a minute with his jaw working up and down as if he wanted to say something before he zoomed over to Saito and started inspecting the box in his hand and the ring on his finger with a critical eye.

After what seemed like forever, Saito finally said, "Oi, mind letting me go?"

Wil started at this and noticed that he had Saito's arms clasped in his hands as he inspected the phenomenon of a small container holding way more mass that it should've been possible. Wil asked as much."How did you do that?"

Saito looked conflicted for a second before saying, "Magic, I use magic on this box and force the magic to create a sort of storage space inside the box and the ring is like a key that opens it up."

At this Wil started before moving back. He stated rather than said, "You're a noble."

Saito just shook his head and said, "no, not a noble, just a traveler that is a long way from home."

Wil just stared at Saito for a minute before sighing and shook his head. Replying with "Sorry for jumping to conclusions"

Saito just waved it off and said,"Don't worry about it, even I'm not completely sure if I could be classified as a noble based on my circumstances."

Wil looked curious but didn't pursue the matter.

"Anyway, I got everything you need, so mind saying the magic words?" Saito asked as he took out the 3 request papers. Soon enough 3 separates bags were where Saito once held the papers. Splitting the amount in half, he kept one half and returned the other to Wil as part of his deal.

Looking at the request board again, Saito furrowed his brow as he saw more of Wil's request. throughout all of the requests, Saito seemed to notice that all the reagents that Wil wanted had to do with the earth and even with Saito's complete lack of understanding alchemy, he knew that something big was going on with so much different reagents of the Earth. The mushrooms and strong branches he could understand, but gnome essences, gold dust, and swamp water reeked of suspicion. He put those suspicions to words.

"Hey, I noticed that most of your requests have to do with gathering reagents that have to do with the Earth element. Mind telling me why or is that too personal?" Saito asked.

At this Wil seemed to look up on surprise only to see Saito looking through the request board again. Sighing Wil started explaining. "As a newly minted alchemist, I'm expected to go out and gather all my reagents by myself, or hire a bodyguard, but I don't like the company of strangers, So I decided to take a risk. I devoted all of my time after becoming a new alchemist to finding a way to make a golem that would serve as a companion and bodyguard. The materials such as gnome essence, gold dust, swamp water, good soil, refined stone all contribute to my research of creating a golem. The tree branches and mushrooms are for potions and dyes that this store normally sells. I had originally posted the request when the orc infestation was reaching its peak, so I hoped someone would do it but no luck. So all my stock" waving to the empty store around him "ended up being sold out and I had no way of restocking since I didn't want to take the risk of going out by myself and I spent all my money on requests to help my research along."

Saito who had been listening raptly while browsing through the requests let out a whistle."Well talk about bad luck, so if I never showed up, you would've been in deep shit so to speak?"

Wil just nodded and said, "In a manner of speaking, yes."

"Well I guess that answers that, but can you also answer why you look like you haven't slept in a week? I think corpse's aren't as pale as you are right now." Saito questioned.

"ahh..." Wil trailed off before blushing. "I'm an insomniac when I start researching... so I must've been ignoring my body's tiredness?"

Saito just stared. Hard. Then he shrugged before turning back to the request board. Looking over it he asked another question."Hey I notice theirs only D and E rank requests here. Aren't there any C's or B's?"

This time it was Wil's turn to stare. "You must've really been from somewhere far away if you don't know this." he said before continuing. "The reason their is no C or D rank requests is because most C or B's have a much higher danger rate, so it generally requires about 4 people for every C-rank. B-ranks are even harder and generally need around 10. Of course there are some people who could do such requests with less people, but that is because their more used to combat compared to the people who take requests. Most of these people are part of the Hunters guild, and the missions that the guild gives pay more then requests."

Saito furrowed his brow and asked, "Hunters guild?"

Wil had given up on understanding the seemingly lack of common sense Saito had and said, "Yea, Hunters guild, They're basically a group of people situated in the capital of Tristania who created a guild that specialized in hunting monsters. Nobles would go to them and pay for missions to hunt down specific monsters for reagents. Since its a noble paying, obviously the pay is much higher and requests are nothing compared to that. So most people go to the Hunters guild rather then do requests which pay very little compared to the missions from the guild."

Saito thought for a second but then said, "What about the alchemist guild? Surely their must be a guild of alchemists that would pay just as much?"

At this Wil just smiled sadly. "The alchemist guild is no where near as strong as the hunters guild. Even then, the alchemist guild is in name only. All alchemists prefer to keep their research to themselves and are reluctant to share their research with others. Most of the alchemists also hire people from the hunters guild to get them materials. The request board is just something that alchemists use when they need to get something that the hunters guild would normally never accept as a mission."

Saito stayed quiet while going over what he just learned. Soon he enough he said, "So that's why you're researching the creation of a golem, you're planning on making it extremely sturdy so that it can defend you while you gather the materials. Also it can protect you as you slowly gather more combat experience. It's also your safety net if you encounter a situation that is beyond your control. Heh I never thought of you as the type to plan out such things."

As Saito just talked, Wil just had a raised eyebrow. When Saito finished Wil looked at Saito and said, "Errrr... I never thought of it like that. I only wanted to a companion and the easiest one I could think of was a golem made out of earth since its around us in every way and if the golem gets destroyed, the material is already close by."

"What?" Saito said.

Wil continued his reasoning. "Well you see, I was thinking of creating a cost efficient golem which would minimize the costs and Earth was the only one I could think of since its sturdy, but also abundant around us. This way I have a companion with me as I gather materials and a guardian that could easily fix itself based on the catalyst I use to create it."

Saito started massaging his forehead halfway in. Apparently Wil had no sense of forward planning and just made things up as he went until he was satisfied.

Holding up a hand in front of Wil who stopped talking when he saw the hand, Saito asked, "What will you do if the golem ends up failing? What then? What if its not strong enough to protect you as well?"

At this Wil looked lost. Sighing Saito asked, "What if you're golem is not strong enough to protect you?"

Wil looked up and said, " Well I'll make it stronger and better until it can."

Saito stared and sighed again. He would accept that answer for now. Turning back to the request board he started looking through the requests again.

Stopping at a request, he furrowed his brow and wondered if it was a mistake."Hey Wil, why does one of the request ask for _mud_ of all things?"

Wil who had dazed look on his head turned and said, "Repeat that again?"

"Why is there a request asking for _mud_?" Saito asked.

"Ahhhh..that..." Wil trailed off.

Waiting for an answer Saito continued looking for similar requests. Hum, apparently Wil was looking for different kinds of mud and soil. There was fresh mud, packed mud, normal soil, good soil, refined soil and grade A soil. though the amounts being asked for was ludicrous. 50 pounds worth for each request? No wonder no one did these requests. It was degrading and a waste of time to some people. Though there might be people who would do it if they weren't scared of the monsters that seemed to roam the place. One thing was clear to Saito, the people of this world seemed to fear the monsters while there were people enjoyed hunting said monsters. In a way he could understand. In all the mangas he read, the civilians were always scared. Waiting for a hero to save them.

Grabbing all the requests that had to do with collecting soils and muds he moved to Wil who appeared to be deep in thought. Once in front of him he waved the bundle of paper in front of him and said, "Information if you don't mind."

Wil took a look at the request and raised an eyebrow. he asked, " Are you sure you want to take all 4? While you could complete one and come back and repeat, it'll be quite heavy."

Saito just rolled his eyes and held up a box. Seeing the box, Wil's eyes lit up and his mouth moved into an 'o' shape.

"In that case, mind picking up more mushrooms, branches, sticks, stones,etc? I could use all that stuff to create more stuff to sell and get this place back in business." Wil asked.

At this Saito smirked. Looks like his gut instinct wasn't wrong, even if he was new to business apparently Wil had a one track mind. Though Saito did wonder if Wil actually thought as far ahead as Saito. Shrugging it off, Saito said," Give me a list of stuff to collect, their general description and where they would most commonly be found and you got yourself a deal."

Wil quickly ran off into the room behind the counter and returned not even a minute later with a quill(?) and paper in hand. Sitting on the stool behind the counter, he started writing out a list. Saito looked at him writing stuff down on the paper and then at the clock above him. Seeing that it was around 2 in the afternoon, Saito told Wil he would be heading out to lunch, he would be back later, he also asked if he wanted anything.

Wil just shook his head and waved him off. Exciting Wil's store Saito started walking in a random direction. Now that he had some money, he wanted to try out some of the food from this world. The breakfast he had in the morning was just soup with a loaf of bread.

Looking around the town square which was a lot quieter then it normally was. Then he remembered Wil saying something about an orc extermination force. guess that was where nearly everyone went. To help exterminate a the infestation of orcs. Now that he thought about, it was kind of strange that orcs crowded up. From what he had gleaned they grouped up, but only in trios. Never in a group more then that because then you would run the risk of infighting and mutual annihilation. Oh well, it had nothing to do with him so he would leave it to the more experienced people.

Testing out a fried newt on a stick, he was surprised that it tasted like chicken. Looking down at said treat in hand, he grimaced. That was a bad comparison on his part. Getting back up he headed towards Wil's shop again. Surely by now Wil would be done compiling him a list of stuff that would be beneficial to getting his store back up and running again.

Sure enough, when Saito entered, Wil was no where in sight but a bundle of paper was left on the front counter. Picking it up he saw that the list was indeed done. Picking up a spare piece of paper, he picked up the forgotten quill and left a note saying he would be back in a couple of days. He wanted to avoid the forces hunting down the orcs, so he would start from the Yuidori Cave to the west of Taft and then work his way towards the forest near the lake which the extermination was taking place, hopefully by the time he reached that area, the extermination would be complete.

...

5 days later and Saito was nearly done collecting all the stuff he needed. The only thing left to do was to wait for the extermination force to return and he would have the go ahead to head back into the Taft Woodlands to collect the rest.

Throughout the 5 days that Saito had, he had gone back to the Yuidori Cave to collect the muds and in the process gained quite a sum èclus from the monsters inside. Apparently, even Wil didn't know why when monsters died they magically have a bag that appears with the stuff they carried inside it. It had apparently stumped historians on how such a phenomenon existed. In the end they ended up not questioning it and accepted it as part of their lives. Saito who was likewise stumped decided he would reserve judgement for a later time.

He had also made a semi-permanent base at the Charming Fairies. He had been using it for so long and always the same room that Jessica had told Scarron and Scarron had confronted Saito that he could live in the room, so long as he paid 1000 èclus per month. Saito was more then happy to accept since paying 200 every night would eventually pile up till he couldn't pay. Though he did wonder why Jessica and Scarron seemed so kind to him.

When he mentioned them in passing to Wil, He had jumped over the counter and said, "Oh shit!" before running out the door. Saito just stared and decided to house sit while he was gone. Though he was rather bored until he found a catalogue of some sort stored behind the counter. Looking at said catalogue, Saitos eyes lit up. Apparently alchemists were potion makers, and with the right reagents they could make potions that restored stamina, fatigue, even wounds. In his mind Saito labeled Wil as a Potion Seller under Aspiring Alchemist.

Spending his time flipping through the catalogue, he was surprised that there were such diverse products made by alchemists. Apparently some specialized in weapon forging and enchanting while others crafted jewelry or made potions. All in all to Saito it seemed that Alchemist was just another way to say Jack-of-All-Trades. Though that did bring up the question of how nobles were automatically labeled Mages and mercenaries labeled Hunter. Shrugging it off as unimportant, Saito pondered if he should find one of these alchemists specializing in weapon forging. While Saito wasn't extremely good at swordplay, he wasn't bad either. The Japan Magical Institute had a class that taught one how to use a katana as a way to keep old traditions from feudal Japan alive, he was more interested in the archery section of the class. Ever since he saw Fate/Stay Unlimited Blade Works, he always wanted to be a bad ass like that Archer dude. Who wouldn't though. In his opinion, anyone who could snipe a raging giant with a sword turned arrow from over a kilometer was badass and Saito always wanted to try replicating the same feat. Though if he did, he would start off with arrows instead of swords, no way was he dumb enough to start shooting swords from a bow without proper knowledge of how it worked normally with an arrow.

One hour later and Wil came back into the store looking like he was on the verge of tears. Saito just ignored it and said, "Yo" as he continued looking over the catalogue. How was the damn thing so thick?

10 minutes of awkward silence, Saito sighed. Looking up he asked, "What happened?"

Wil launched into a story of how he ended up forgetting that he had promised to help Scarron create a potion that would give him more feminine looks once he became an alchemist. At this Saito repressed the urge to vomit and instead opted to bang his head against the counter to get rid of the mental image of Scarron with more feminine looks. Lots of banging was involved. After that episode Wil continued and said that when he showed up, Scarron was overjoyed to see him thinking that he finished said potion, but when he said no, there wasn't a force on earth that could do that short of a miracle, Scarron had burst into tears and ran off back into the inn. From there an awkward silence had fallen on the inn until one of the customers came up to Wil and said, "Oi, Jessica round of drinks for everyone on me! this kid just said what all of us couldn't say to that guy. Give him something strong!". From their an things degenerated into Wil being called a man among men and people started toasting him for his bravery. Throughout the entire thing, Wil just felt he wanted to commit suicide. then he came back to the store.

Saito was shocked speechless. He couldn't even formulate words to describe what he was feeling at the moment, but he knew that he definitely needed a drink or else he would be the one committing suicide instead of Wil.

Another 10 minutes later Saito finally croaked out, "We...well you could try to research a miracle that would give him more feminine looks...?". Just saying that made Saito want to hurl. However it seemed to have brought Wil out of his funk because he suddenly clenched his fist and declared, " Alright! I'll research a way to give Scarron feminine looks if its the last thing I do!".

Saito stared with his right eyebrow twitching. . . . . .Sentence. he thought. Outwardly he said,"Err, sure..."

Then he noticed that Wil seemed to be swaying on his feet and sure enough he collapsed not even 10 seconds later. Snoring on the floor. Saito just stared at the fallen figure for a minute before sighing. Getting up, he picked up Wil only to almost fall over at how light he felt. Then he noticed that his bags seemed to have grown more pronounced and his skin was a pasty color that Saito was pretty sure was not healthy.. Rushing out the door not even 10 seconds later, Saito made sure he locked down Wil's store before legging it to the Charming Fairies. Entering shoulder first he semi-dragged Wil's body to the startled Jessica and growled out, "Room. NOW!"

Jessica took one look at Wil and quickly got up herself and told him to follow her. She then told a waitress to watch the front and moved towards the back in a hurried pace. Saito followed her as quick as he could without jostling Wil. 5 minutes later they exited through the backdoor confusing Saito as he followed Jessica who told him to keep up. Another 5 minutes later and they walked into a shabby looking building. However inside was a bustling network of activity. People in weird robes seemed to move about talking with other people in robes or talking to other people in general. Jessica led him up a flight of stairs and called for Hannah. Said person was a blue haired girl wearing an elaborate robes and a two-piece headdress of some sort. Upon seeing Wil, she just seemed to sigh and stare at Jessica. Jessica just said, "Again" while sighing as well. Then both of them sighed before Hannah moved forward and took Wil from his grasp. While he was unsure of whether or not she would be able to hold him, he was surprised when she lifted him into a bridal carry and walked off.

Turning his head towards Jessica, he silently asked the unspoken question.

Jessica just rolled his her eye's and said, "Don't worry about it, Hannah s a professional healer. Also this isn't the first time that Wil passed out from lack of sleep, nor is it the first time he fainted from malnourishment."

Saito just stared as Jessica continued talking.

"This past year, he's been fainting a lot from lack of sleep or nourishment. Either way it's because hes trying so hard to make his store a success that hes been neglecting himself. Its gotten to the point that it would be weird if he didn't show up here every 2 months." Jessica finished.

Both stared at each other before sighing. Then Jessica asked, "So what have you been doing in his company lately?"

Saito raised an eyebrow and asked, "What makes you think I've been hanging out with him?"

Jessica just smirked and said, "How else did you know to bring him to the Charming Fairies? Normally one of us would have to check up on him every month, but it seems like you were the one who found him. Normally he never leaves his study without good reason. So what happened?"

Saito sighed at the logic. He then explained how he took a request from a board and that led to him first meeting Wil then how he continued on how he did another request after the first. Skipping over how disastrous their initial meeting was of course. Then he ended up proposing to be business partners and he ended up agreeing and then for the past week, he had been helping him gather materials while trying to complete most his requests. By the time he was done explaining Jessica was nodding her head.

Seeing her nod her head, he asked what was wrong.

Jessica just said, "I can see why dad trusted you enough to let you rent out a room instead of paying every night."

Saito raised an eyebrow and said, "What?"

"Well you see, dad has this weird habit of making spontaneous decisions after watching someone for a while. You must be pretty special for dad to take notice of you. Normally he's nice to everyone he meets, but those who he considers to be good people, he'll extend a hand out to them if they're in need." Jessica explained.

While Saito followed her explanation he was curious as to who her dad was. "Dad?" he asked.

Jessica nodded. "Yea, Scarron's my dad." she said.

Saitos head once more met a wall.

...

Walking out of the front door, Saito was surprised to see a church of all things that he was leaving. His surprise must've shown because Jessica said, "yea, churches act in the place of the water mages because our city doesn't have any nobles living in it. So mages that specialize in water are rare."

While Saito had no clue what she was talking about, he nodded anyway. He would ask about that later when Wil was recovered, but for now he just remembered that by now the library should be done sorting and he should really be heading over to search up information instead of relying on Wil. So bidding Jessica good bye for now, he headed off towards the library.

...

Arriving at the library 15 minutes later. Saito walked straight in and headed towards the historical session. He was still surprised by how most of the books were a mix of Italian, German, English and French. Thank god for universal translation spell or else he would've been screwed.

Looking for a title that would give him what he needed, he was not ready to see just how tall the bookcases spanned. Apparently he really should have learned to look up, he had thought that the bookcases would be a normal height of around 10 meters but he was shocked when he saw the dam thing reach the ceiling. A domed ceiling that was well over 100 meters. Feeling the urge to bang his head against something for the nth time today, Saito just face palmed While he was sure he could bang his head against the bookshelves, he wasn't sure if it wouldn't create a domino effect.

Looking for maybe 5 minutes Saito gave it up as a lost cause and looked for a librarian. Another 5 minutes later and Saito was sitting at a table reading the book the librarian had magicked down for him.

Apparently he was on a continent called Halkeginia that closely resembled Western Europe from his world. This continent seemed to be dominated by the 4 main countries on it which were Germania, the largest of the 4 followed by Gallia the most militant, then Romania home of the religious and people who lived in peace with monsters and finally Tristania the smallest country sandwiched between 2 of them as a neutral trade hub, with Albion being an unofficial 5th since it wasn't on land, rather it _floated_ in the sky.

Rubbing his head in an attempt to stave off the headache he continued reading.

Apparently to the right of Germania and Gallia was the so called dead-zone because it was inhabited by the elves that got quite touchy when humans encroached on their territory. It was apparently full of sand and Saito thought that it was the Sahara. That meant that there were still at least 6 continents to be discovered if this was an alternate universe like he had thought. Then again he could be wrong, he did after all lack the information needed to make a solid conclusion.

Deeming this enough information regarding the continent he was on, he headed towards the librarian who helped him and returned the book and asked for a book on the history of monsters and important events that happened in Halkeginia.

8 hours later and the library was closing. Saito was leaving said library while massaging his temple. Reading all of the books that he did, he found himself overloaded with information regarding the world he had stepped into. Apparently sometime in the past, the elves ruled over the humans but when humans learned magic they fought back and eventually pushed the elves into the Sahara where life was unable to flourish. However the elves using magic specific to their race was somehow able to build a paradise in the harsh unforgiving desert.

The Heroes that brought about the end was a Mage by the name of Brimir and his trusty companion Derflinger who was the pinnacle of swordsmen at the time. Together they fought off the elves that tried to strike back against the humans who rebelled as a 2 man army, with Brimir obtaining the title of Savior and Derflinger being called the Sword King. They had near single handedly ended the war between the human and the elves in the humans victory. As such they were seen as the pinnacle of all Alchemists, Hunters, Mages, Cultists, etc.

Another thing he had learned was that there were so many different types of guilds that it was a wonder that they didn't go to war against each other in a conflict of interest.

The most popular ones were the Alchemists, Hunters and Mages while the rest were just factions of people who wanted to be well known. Apparently a guild had originally meant a group of people that acted as a family. However as things expanded, it became a organization that organized groups of people into categories. The Alchemists were one of the most popular due to the fact that joining meant you had received a stipend to help start up your shop but had to be returned in less then 10 years. Or else you would be blacklisted forever, spanning generations. They were created 800 years back when the Mages guild no longer created potions for the public to buy. The next were the Hunters who main clientele were the nobles who were too lazy to get their own reagents and commissioned Hunters to get it for them. This was a relatively new guild with not even 200 years of existence but has flourished since it was formed. Then there were the Mages which owned all 5 of the Magical Institutions located in all the countries. It had the longest history spanning back to before the War Of Separation between the humans and elves. They were basically the guild that taught Brimir his magic and since then, all of their members were comprised of nobles.

These 3 guilds were the current super powers of the continent. All situated in the Capital of Tristania. Because these 3 were situated in Tristania, no country has ever gone to war in the past 100 years fearing that one of the three might make a move to end the war immediately and the other two would inevitably follow.

Then there were the monsters that existed in this world. Apparently they predated humans and elves and had been around longer then both races. However as time went on, elves and then humans found ways to kill the monsters and since then monster numbers have dwindled compared to 1000 years ago but it was still a large amount. Mostly because the monsters reproduced and matured much quicker then humans and elves. Based on writings found in underground temples that were seemingly buried, there was one major incident that changed the world. Scholars deciphered the event to be called "Break the World" which happened 5000 years ago when a large rock struck Halkeginia and caused the Fire Mountains to be formed in Germania and the Sahara to become what it was today. Based on past scriptures the location where the Sahara was today, used to be a forest full of trees that towered over the people.

Rubbing his forehead again, Saito headed back to the Charming Fairies. Everything that happened today had caused him a major headache and Saito would love nothing more then to sleep it off. However when he reached the town square he was greeted to the sight of lots of people running towards the South Entrance. Asking a nearby vendor what was happening, the vendor replied that the extermination force was returning and the people were going to greet them. Saito just nodded at this and continued on his way towards the Charming Fairies. Now he knew it would be okay to head into the forest to collect the stuff he needed. Tomorrow sounded like a good time, but for now he just wanted to sleep. Which was exactly what he did when he got to his room inside the inn.

* * *

**AN: Just an information chapter in my opinion. To be honest I no longer know what the hell I'm writing. My mind just comes up with an idea and I just automatically think of a way to integrate it into the story.**

**I'm still thinking up ideas on how I should introduce the rest of the FoZ cast and so far I only have a general idea of Tabitha's cuz shes easily my favorite character in this series. The OC Wilfred Dion was from a *cough* game *cough* I played. So don't mind if his OOCness comes off as weird, I just didn't feel like inventing a whole new character. **

**And yea, I have no clue what I'm writing.**

**n0mster, regarding your review, yea I made Saito very unlikable in chapter 1, but I was trying to imagine a real-case scenario. I know for a fact that anyone who ends up in a new world with or without knowledge of such a fact would definitely distrust anyone. Its like the concept of how people fear what they don't know. I just applied it to Saito and I guess that's how I think he would react. Like in canon he tried denying he ended up in a new world for 2 episodes? Not sure haven't watched it in a long time. Also Saitos attempt to avoid the caravn and the orcs is my attempt at making the situation more believable. When stressed the human mind comes up with devious ideas that sound good to your stressed-mind but to a calm one it'll look retarded as hell. Also got annoyed with all those dimensional traveling fics where the guy was thrust into a new dimension and just rolled with it like it was normal. In this chapter it might sound like I'm a hypocrite but now that Saito understands his situation better, he'll take things he learns about this world in stride. Do continue criticizing my work, while it'll kill my self-esteem a little, its better then writing a piece of crap.**

**God I feel like I'm ranting.**

**Like all chapters, they ain't beta'd so excuse the mistakes if you see them.**

**Out for now.**


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